This morning, a new website launched at www.discussingmarriage.org.

What is marriage? Why is the topic such a contentious issue in modern day politics? What is at stake in the marriage debate? On this website hosted by a local wordpress hosting company, the authors attempt to respond to these questions and more. There are new and compelling arguments for why man-woman marriage is good public policy, but they are not well known. The hope is that this website will help bring these arguments to light, and provide people with the resources to understand them. The purpose of this site is also to inject humility into the conversation on both sides of the issue. Reasoned, measured, and respectful dialogue is possible with regards to marriage.

A note for M* readers: There is no reason that we, as Latter-day Saints, cannot defend traditional marriage as a pillar of our faith, and as sound, informed, reasoned public policy. There are secular, public sphere arguments for traditional marriage — perhaps dozens of them — that have nothing to do with religious doctrine or belief. This site will present them (there are two currently published, with many others on the way).

Current articles:
The Conjugal View and Revisionist View of Marriage
The Argument from Crucial Distinction
The Argument from Public Interest
The Objection from Infertility
The Objection from Bigotry

Please visit the site, and read the articles — and share them. There are YouTube videos also associated with each article.

Like the page on Facebook/discussingmarriage
Join the conversation on Twitter @discussmarriage
Subscribe to the YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/discussingmarriage
Subscribe to be notified by email when new articles are published.

This is a guest post by Michael Towns.

In 1971, seminal English rock band The Who released a classic entitled “Won’t Get Fooled Again” which includes these words: “Meet the new boss….same as the old boss!” For decades, it’s been interpreted in a political context. Nixon was viewed as not that different as Johnson – both escalated military actions in Vietnam and thus the “new boss” was the same as the “old boss.”

There is a troubling aspect to contemporary social discourse. It goes something like this: you don’t agree with the social, political, or religious beliefs of a person or a group of people, yet instead of meeting those beliefs from a position of mutual respect in the marketplace of ideas, you label the person or group using a catch-all epithet designed to so marginalize your opponent that the labeling party essentially can claim a victory before the battle has even started. The labeling party views this result as perfectly condign to the crime of talking about certain topics. Meet the New Bigotry. It’s the same as the Old Bigotry.

In a way I can see the logic of such a tactic. By anathematizing the “other”, you can insulate yourself from having to wrestle with your political or social conceits. By marginalizing those who believe differently than you, you can supposedly remain perched upon your moral tower while ensconced in your blissful echo chamber. It frees you from having to engage in the rough and tumble of debate. But let me be perfectly blunt about it: doing so makes the person a complete anti-intellectual coward.
Continue reading →

A few weeks ago I proposed that Eliza had modified her journal. I also proposed that it would be very hard to discern if her journal had been modified.

At the time I proposed that Eliza originally wrote the poem to Jonathan, accepting his offer to be her public husband. I suggested that the “& Elvira” was added, and that the three instances of “your” in the final stanza might have originally been “our.”

Looking at the manuscript, I can see that my original hypothesis about how the manuscript was modified does not stand. But the journal entry was clearly modified. The ink used on September 18th is the same as the ink used before December 12th, making a possible modification in November plausible.

Let me explain, and then we can see what you think. Continue reading →

I saw a funny link on M* to this editorial called “Op-ed: Tribune should go on; LDS scripture requires it.” Of course this piqued my curiosity so I read through it. The scripture in question is that there must be opposition in all things. Had to laugh, since this scripture is about why evil is necessary in mortality. Well, actually that understates the unintended humor in this article. Check out 2 Nephi 2:10 for full context. This scripture is actually explaining why God must punish the wicked.

This op-ed is pretty poor for the most part. A confused throwing together of unsupported opinions. The article make the following, imo, humorous charges: Continue reading →

[This post is part of a series on Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. To read from the beginning or link to previously published posts, go to A Faithful Joseph.]

In the 1820s a little free black girl was taken into the Connecticut home of Joseph and Dorinda Fitch,[ref]Jane’s diary mentions Joseph Fitch, his wife and daughter. Additional details on the Fitch family in Wilton were located in the book Descendants of Reinold and Matthew Marvin of Hartford, Ct., by George Franklin Marvin and William Theophilus Rogers Marvin, available online at http://books.google.com/books?id=Gc81AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA430#v=onepage&q&f=false, retrieved 1 June 2014, and familysearch.org.[/ref] to be a companion to their daughter, Caroline. This little black girl was Jane Manning, whose father had died.

In early 1841, when Caroline was fourteen,[ref]In Jane’s autobiography, she says she, herself, was fourteen. However since Jane was born in 1822, the chronology doesn’t work, making it likely Jane was using the age of the girl for whom she served as companion. Jane’s autobiography is available online at http://www.blacklds.org/manning, retrieved 1 June 2014.[/ref] Jane joined the Presbyterian Church:

…yet I did not feel satisfied. It seemed to me there was something more that I was looking for. I had belonged to the [Presbyterian] Church about eighteen months when an Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints, [who] was traveling through our country, preached there. The pastor of the Presbyterian Church forbade me going to hear them as he had heard I had expressed a desire to hear them; nevertheless I went on a Sunday and was fully convinced that it was the true gospel he presented and I must embrace it. Continue reading →